Whaling is the hunting of whales for their usable products like meat, oil and blubber. Its earliest forms date to at least circa 3000 BC. Coastal communities around the world have long histories of subsistence whaling and harvesting beached whales. Industrial whaling emerged with organized fleets in the 17th century; competitive national whaling industries in the 18th and 19th centuries; and the introduction of factory ships along with the concept of whale harvesting in the first half of the 20th century. By the late 1930s more than 50,000 whales were killed annually In 1986, the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling because of the extreme depletion of most of the whale stocks.Contemporary whaling is subject to intense debate. Countries that support commercial whaling, notably Iceland, Japan, and Norway, wish to lift the ban on certain whale stocks for hunting. Anti-whaling countries and environmental groups oppose lifting the ban. Under the terms of the IWC moratorium, aboriginal whaling is allowed to continue on a subsistence basis. Over the past few decades, whale watching has become a significant industry in many parts of the world; in some countries it has replaced whaling, but in a few others, the two business models exist in an uneasy tension.
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